Sunday, September 23, 2012

I've been listening to Judas Iscariot quite a bit as of late, and it got me to thinking that despite the multitude of great releases, most black metal from the States (USBM) gets a bad wrap. To paraphrase the late, great Rodney Dangerfield, "we don't get no respect!" So, here are my personal favorites....maybe a few that might be surprising, but I think that everyone can agree that while the U.S. might not have originated the "classic" black metal sound, we have done quite a bit to contribute and advance the overall sound and continuously mutating aesthetic of black metal.

1.Black Funeral- Vampyr-Throne of the Beast

To describe this album as otherworldly would not even begin to do it justice. Vampyr just taps into as atmosphere that I don't think any other black metal band ever approached. I can't even describe it except to say that it's simultaneously cavernous and cosmic...I don't know how in the hell they achieved this, but it's fucking awesome, and it's why Vampyr takes the #1 spot as my all time favorite USBM album.

This was a tough one...which Judas Iscariot release to pick...all of his releases have that X-factor that make them insanely memorable and powerful. What makes To Embrace so damned good and worthy of the #2 spot is the ramped up technicality of Akhenaten's material. Spicy trem-picked guitars are fueled by the inventively pummeling stickwork of Duane Timlin. Grim funeral dirges will suddenly erupt into passages of expansive fury. Is there any blackened moment more viscerally shocking than the tempo shift halfway through "In the Valley of Death"? A masterwork, pure and simple.

A compendium of Wrest's multitude of demos. God damn that guy was busy. I fell in love with Verrater the first time I heard it, and I am still just as enthralled as I was on day one (specifically the Kranheit disc). Are Lunarctic has to be one of the best black metal songs ever, without a doubt....well, Blood Red and True is a close second.

Droning, powerful frostbitten black metal from the incredibly prolific Mikael Bayusik...I pretty much love all the stuff this guy has done (especially those Tearstained cds), but there is just something very special about The First Snowfall.

AN are a strange duck - starting with the band name and moving on to their drastic change in musical direction after this album. In fact, if one knows of this band, it's probably from their later symphonic bombastic Dimmu-esque albums...which are pretty decent in their own right. But it is this one...this surreal Industrial Prog/black metal opus that takes the cake. Fucking scary.

Maybe the most hyped black metal band in existence, but not without good reason! Fas is by far my favorite DO album...although there is quite a bit of filler, when they really get going it's a total whirlfuck of complex technical blackness.

If you haven't picked up from most of these album titles already the majority of French black metal acts concern themselves with existential topics-no mere "praise Satan" for these folks. Blut has been performing their warped version of existential Black metal for well over a decade and a half now. All of mainman Vindsval's releases are beyond solid, but Odinist has these especially woozy seasick guitars that meld so so well with the idiosyncratic drumbeats. Music to go slipping through wormholes to.

This actually isn't my favorite Mutiilation album (that would be the oh so fucked-up Black Millennium (Grimly Reborn) from 2001), but Sorrow Galaxies may very well be Monsieur Roussel's best work....streamlined, more technical, but still just as weird as ever. We're proud of ya Willie!